AOL Time Warner is Most Attractive Network in November
November 2001 saw the first-ever portal-channel rankings performed by Jupiter Media Metrix and the results should make AOL very happy.
AOL's network of Web sites and channels welcomed 83,843 visitors in November beating out rival Microsoft's channels by a healthy margin. Microsoft-MSN sites had 74,782 unique visitors in the same time period.
Third place honors went to Yahoo sites with an aggregate 71,976 visitors, followed by Terra Lycos in the fourth position with 38,299 unique visitors. Other portal-channel networks that made the top ten were: Vivendi Universal (35,793), About/Primedia (30,974), Amazon.com sites (30,326), eBay (28,364), American Greetings (25,540), and Cnet Networks (23,262).
Jupiter MMX's new list ranks portal channels, online software applications (such as file-sharing programs, chat and gaming applications) and commercial online services (America Online, Compuserve, and United Online) across 27 categories and 71 subcategories.
Betting Starts Early According to New Canadian Study
A recent study conducted by the Responsible Gaming Council (Ontario) has preliminary indications that betting behaviors are increasingly starting at younger ages and schools are a prime spot for the breeding of these behaviors.
The study found that nearly half of Canadians aged nine to 14 have seen students betting at school and nearly 40 percent of the tweens have made bets within the last year. Among the 2.5 million tweens living in Canada, the most common sources of gambling money are their allowance (32 percent), job earnings (20 percent) and money received as gifts (13 percent).
The YTV Kid & Tween Report 2001 is a national survey in its seventh year that monitors the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors of kids (aged 6-8) and tweens (aged 9-14).
The initial numbers also showed that, of those who bet, 50 percent think making money and winning from betting is cool and the most common betting activities were scratch tickets, card/board games with family and friends and sporting events. Additionally, the kids and tweens are more likely to participate in betting activities if they are used to seeing their parents engaging in similar activities.
"We know that one of the most effective ways of preventing gambling problems is to start early, as attitudes and behaviors are formed," adds Jon Kelly, the Council's C.E.O. "The more we know about the lifestyles and attitudes of tweens, the better we can help them avoid future gambling problems."
Women Out-Shopped Men Online this Holiday Season
A study released Monday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that more women shopped online during this past holiday season than men--a first on the traditionally male-dominated Internet.
Approximately 58 percent of the 29 million users who made online purchases were women this year, up from 50 percent during last year's holiday season. In addition, the study showed that about one-third of female Internet users bought gifts online this season compared to only 22 percent of male users.
The study was based on 2,000 adults with Internet access and also showed a bigger picture of the advances the e-commerce sector has made in the past year. The 29 million users spending online holiday money is up from last year's number of 20 million, and the average spend per user is also up significantly from $330 a year ago to $392 this year.
Europe's PC Market Maturing, Recent World Events Have Little Effect
In the weeks following the September 11 attacks in the United States, IDC completed its 2002 Consumer Hardware Study, with emphasis on its effects on consumer purchasing intentions for PCs or smart handheld devices (SHDs) in Western Europe.
According to the study, the attacks had a negligible effect on the actual purchasing behaviors of most computer users. While 55 percent of those surveyed approved of anti-terrorism measures that restricted online privacy, the survey indicated a maturing trend in the overall picture of the hardware market, finding that 60 percent of current PC owners don't intend to purchase a new PC in 2002 and 43 percent of those don't intend to purchase a new PC until after 2004.
While that may seem like bad news for computer manufacturers, the study reveals that marketing messages changing to reflect the needs of the current computer user would help to boost sales since the study also found that those users still have money to spend on computer items. For example, current computer owners were found to be four times more likely to purchase a printer in 2002 than a new PC, so PC suppliers would benefit from concentrating their marketing messages on replacement purchasers instead of new purchasers.
Chris Ingle, senior consultant in IDC's Systems Group, added: "This survey confirms our view that fundamental market conditions--market maturity, renewal rates and product design--are far more important to the market than recent world events."
Newspapers Still Popular Source For Shopping Information
Research newly released from Burson-Marstellar found that newspapers were at the top of the list of sources used by "e-fluentials"--the highly influential group of opinion leaders that represent about 10 percent of the U.S. online population and influence an estimated 14 people each--as the main venue for finding holiday gift ideas.
The newspaper was found to be the main source of holiday shopping information for nearly 60 percent of this elite group, which is credited with affecting the purchasing decisions of 155 million online users. The e-fluentials cited friends as the second best source for gift information at 45 percent. Family and Web sites tied for third at 39 percent.
A surprise finding of the study, in its second year evaluating the e-fluential group, was that despite the millions of advertising dollars funneled into television, only 12 percent reported that they would tune in to their TV as a source for this type of information.
"Good old-fashioned newspapers are demonstrating enormous staying power as highly effective media outlets for holiday shopping sales information on a daily basis, even among the technological elite of the Internet," said Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief knowledge and research officer for Burson-Marsteller.